


Balanced on a Livewire

by AwkwardNinja



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Dick and Bruce punch it out after Dick dies, Eventual Happy Ending, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Serious Injuries, Sort Of, Temporary Character Death, We'll Get There I Promise, eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:02:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23729476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwkwardNinja/pseuds/AwkwardNinja
Summary: Dick wakes up in the aftermath of his not so lasting death. He wants time to process what just happened, and how he's going to live now that he's been exposed as Nightwing to the world. Instead, Bruce has a mission.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson & Slade Wilson
Comments: 56
Kudos: 224





	1. Chapter 1

Dick becomes aware of his senses slowly. His brain feels like it’s being dragged through quicksand, and his eyelids burn as he painstakingly peels them open.

He’s in the cave. He gazes listlessly up at the ceiling while he tries to order his thoughts a little and take stock of his current state.

He feels his heartbeat quicken as he processes that no, he is not, in fact, dead, and yes, what had happened had really just happened. The thudding in his chest is the biggest indicator to the panic thrumming beneath the surface, but mostly Dick just feels numb. In shock, maybe. It’s not every day that one gets severely beaten, has their all-important secret identity revealed to the world, and then consequently gets murdered and brought back to life in the span of about five minutes. Even for a Bat, that’s kind of a rough break. He’s just glad that whoever had set him up here had had the sense not to hook him up to a heart monitor.

Dick’s not sure how well he would have reacted to that, just then.

He can feel eyes gazing steadily at the side of his head from the seat beside the cot he’s currently lying on. He’s not ready to deal with that conversation just yet, so he ignores it. He thinks that’s allowed, all things considered.

Trust Bruce not to give him a moment’s peace, even after death.

“Dick,” he starts.

Bruce’s voice is controlled, balancing between acts. It’s got a hard edge to it, in a way Dick can tell after so many years means he’s gearing up for a fight. Means he’s angry.

Dick turns his head, and meets that unforgiving look.

“Bruce,” he says, blank. Raspy, from recent events. He doesn’t want to fight right now. Doesn’t ever want to fight with Bruce, really. What he wants is some space to think, and maybe some of Alfred’s hot chocolate to sip on while he tries to figure out how he’s going to piece his life back together, after this. If he even can.

“Get up,” Bruce says instead, and his voice doesn’t leave room for an argument.

Dick wants to tell Bruce to go to hell. That he can’t do this right now, that he’s carefully tip-toeing on the edge of a cliff that’s got shame and humiliation and guilt and rage and fear that will swallow him whole if he falls to the bottom. Maybe he would have, if things were different.

But Dick’s been hard trained to listen to that voice since he was eight years old. He gets up.

Bruce seems to have expected nothing less, because he’s already walking towards the practice mats. Dick doesn’t let himself groan as he tips up and off the medical cot and towards him. He shoves down everything he’s been thinking and feeling since he first opened his eyes a few minutes ago, doesn’t let himself feel the aching pain that pulls on his bones and muscles as he follows. He’s been taught better than to let that stop him right now.

Dick never could stand silence. “So, not that I don’t love a quality manly bonding session, but do you think we could maybe schedule this for another time?”

Bruce doesn’t respond, just starts wrapping his hands, an unspoken indication for Dick to do the same.

“Bruce,” he trails off for a second, not sure how to continue. He’s so tired. He decides to go for the tried and failed method of honest communication. “I don’t really want to fight with you right now.”

He doesn’t get a response to that until they’ve both wrapped up, and are facing one another.

“You let them expose you,” Bruce says, and there’s the anger, but it’s controlled, coiled tight, because god forbid the Batman ever lose control over something like _this_. Dick’s own anger tastes like ash on his tongue. There are things he could say to that, things like _what_ _else_ _was_ _I_ _supposed_ _to_ _do_ and _I_ _was_ _alone_ and _I_ _know_ , _I_ _know_ , _and_ _I_ _hate_ _myself_ _for_ _it_. But he chokes down on all of it, keeps himself in check, doesn’t hurl stones at the immovable wall that is the Batman, because he _doesn’t_ _want_ _to_ _fight_ _right_ _now_.

Bruce’s fists come at him like lightning, hard and unforgiving. Always, always, testing his resolve. Move quicker, fight harder, do _better_. Dick wants to throw up.  


Dick blocks his strike, tumbles out of the way, springs back up, dodges the kick that swings wide towards his face. Bruce keeps coming, and Dick keeps responding, until he’s forced to strike back to keep himself standing.

“You let them _kill_ you. Let me watch you _die_.” Their fight has started to move, Dick flipping and kicking off railings, flying, refusing to let himself get knocked down.

“I was trying to save people. I am _alive_ ,” Dick growls, shoving Bruce off him and out of the hold he’d had him in, slamming him down two feet away from the Batmobile. He takes another hit in retaliation.

“ _Prove_ _it_.” Bruce is an unstoppable force. He comes at him with volley after volley, and Dick fights back, furious and unable to ignore that call.

“What _is_ this?” he shouts, because Bruce is calling the shots here, and he lost the ability to comprehend what the hell is happening sometime after the first punch.

Bruce tells him about Spyral, then, how they’re looking into hero identities, the threat they pose, how there’s no one else who won’t give in, how he’s off the grid and the world needs him right now, in between exchanges of blows. He tells him that Dick needs to stay dead, and that no one can know the truth.

Dick is panting, and he _hurts_. He is also _seething_ , and he gets right up in Bruce’s space and he spits “ _No_ ” into his face. The word is desperate, dragged out of him from the pits of the clogged up emotions he’s been shoving down, down, down between ragged breaths. He is not doing this to them. He’s not going to hurt his family this way. He isn’t _Bruce_.

Bruce doesn’t let him off so easy, because when has it ever been easy. Dick’s strength is flagging, but he won’t let himself back down. He thinks of Tim, who already knows a lifetime of neglect, and doesn’t deserve another death to deal with. Of Jason, who he’s just starting to form a new, rocky relationship with, and how that tenuous thread will snap if pressed. Of _Damian_ , and how he can’t do this to them after that. Can’t do it to himself, either.

“If they know our secrets, we can’t fight back,” Bruce says, slamming him into the wall. “You need to stop them.” He hears what Bruce doesn’t say. That he needs to protect them, that they’re all in danger here.

“They’re my _family_ , Bruce. We can’t do this to them. I can’t. They don’t deserve it,” Dick gasps, landing a punch and twisting away.

Bruce keeps coming. “People will die, if we don’t stop this. We need to know what they want, and we need an inside man. _You_.”

“You can’t—”

“They’re going to come for you, after this. If you’re not dead, there’s no stopping them. An irresistible target, a masked man without a mask.” 

Dick flicks the blood on his face out of his eyes. Everything hurts, and they just keep going. He thinks about the kind of life he’d have after this if he stays, knows it’s just going to bring danger on himself and the people he cares about. Would have, even without the threat of Sypral apparently looming over all of their heads. He knows that he is painfully, humiliatingly _exposed_ , and it’s his own fault for being too weak to stop it. The ghost of Damian’s body, covered in blood, hangs before his eyes.

He knows that if he agrees to this, something will shift in his relationship with Bruce. That things could never be the same, after asking him to do this. He doesn’t want to do this.

The fight goes on for a while longer. His knees are weak, his limbs are trembling, but he doesn’t stop. Bruce pushes him to keep on getting back up, to keep fighting. Everything for the goddamn mission, nothing more important than the cause. Dick’s never really enjoyed how people seem to push him around to suit their needs, to expect things from him, how he sometimes feels like he’s a _thing_ for people to use and to have. It’s never really mattered, to the Crime Syndicate or the Court of Owls or the hero community or even to Dick, what he wants. He’s been accused of being too willing to follow orders before, of being an obedient soldier, no matter what the burning straining of his heart against its cage has to say about it.

“I know I’m hurting them. Hurting you,” Bruce says, and it’s the closest he’s looked to a real human man since Dick woke up. The closest to an apology he thinks he’s probably going to get. But agreeing to this, he thinks, isn’t just on Bruce. He’s going to make his choice, and he’s going to have to live with it. He’s so tired.

Dick doesn’t want to do this.

But how can he refuse?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick is back as Nightwing after the events of Spyral, and he's been spending that time, for the most part, alone. Slade Wilson kinda snuck up on me in this one, not sure how, but here he is, in his weird half nemesis relationship with Dick. I'm not really following any specific canon here, if that wasn't obvious. This chapter sort of gives some context for how Dick is handling his guilt and loneliness right now, and the answer is that he is handling it not so well. Dick's dealing with a lot of delicate mental health issues, and they will be addressed eventually. Slade's not really the one for that conversation, but I thought it might be interesting to see how he'd handle Dick "dying" and then not being dead, which I guess I hc as him creepily showing up to sort of check in like 6 months later. And he's someone not tied to Dick's complicated emotional issues right now, so here he is helping him not die.  
> Hopefully update soon!

Nightwing is perched at the edge of a rooftop in the Narrows. He’s been tracking and building a case against one of Bludhaven’s more prominent uprising organized crime groups, headed by a guy named Archibald Flinn. He’d been using his company’s organ donation charity as a way to funnel cash into local drug peddling groups, and as a front to traffic kids overseas, to boot. The police hadn’t been able to get anything on higher ups like Flinn, owing to his weight in certain political circles and to some of the corruption Dick hasn’t been able to ever fully flush out of the BPD. 

Needless to say, Dick is pissed, and tonight, Nightwing had personally busted in and taken down an incoming shipment, which had included _children_ , leaving the men he’d taken out hogtied and enough evidence to hopefully take down Flinn’s right hand man. He’d stayed down long enough to make sure the kids were safe and in the custody of trusted members of the BPD, and had then retreated to a nearby rooftop to make sure the rest was taken care of. He’s going to personally see to it that each of those kids ends up safe in the aftermath, which is the best he can do right now. It’ll take months, maybe years, to fully dismantle a crime ring as sophisticated as this. And it’s involvement in sex trafficking rubs at him in places he doesn’t let see the light of day, that feel like a gunshot ringing in his ears and unwanted hands roaming over his body. Dick run’s a tired, gloved hand down his face.

It’s been almost half a year since the end of his stint with Spyral, and in the time since, he’s worked only a few cases with Batman, has seen Bruce in person maybe but once or twice. Tim and Jason have barely spoken two words to him out of costume, since Jason had punched him in the face and they’d finished things with Spyral. He’s seen Damian more frequently, not able to stay away after getting him back, and although he still talks to Dick, he knows it’s not the same as it was before. Whatever trust had been built with his relationships has all but vanished, and it’s less than he deserves. He’d made them mourn him, after all. And Bruce… Dick needs time away from Bruce, right now. 

So here he sits, watching the last of the low level scum bags get carted away to places where the sun don’t shine, and he intends to keep them there. He’d gone in alone, as he had mostly been doing since getting back into the vigilante gig, given current circumstances. No backup had meant that Dick was now sporting a new mosaic of bruises all over his body, a single clean gunshot wound through his upper arm, some knife slices of varying degrees of depth on his legs and on his side, possibly a concussion from when a few of them had gotten the upper hand and slammed him through a window and into a wall. He’d popped his dislocated shoulder into place as soon as he’d knocked out the last one, and it ached something fierce while he sat here and waited. He was lucky that the men trusted to handle this shipment hadn’t been highly skilled or trained members of Bludhaven’s criminal underclass, or it could have been worse. Or maybe not so lucky, since Dick had been meticulously working this case for weeks, and had made sure he knew exactly who was going to be in that warehouse tonight. He still shouldn’t have taken on so many alone. 

He knows this, knows he should be more careful if he’s going to be working cases like this alone. He hasn’t been working cases as fully fledged as this one in all the time since he’s been back, but it isn’t the first, and he hasn’t stopped to let himself breathe since he’d found himself impossibly returned back into his life, on his own. He can’t, because if he stops then he has time to think about how Jason and Tim and Babs and Damian, eventually, must have looked standing over his grave, another loved one seemingly senselessly lost to the cause. How they must have felt. 

He’ll have time to remember and process the things he’d seen working as a spy, war crimes and death and betrayal the likes of which you don’t usually see, as a vigilante in the city. To remember the vast, unending, unforgiving stretches of the gritty, hot, desert, and a little heartbeat getting weaker and weaker as he stumbled on and on without stopping. 

He’ll have time to think about the sound of a heartbeat strapped to a bomb, of being unable to move, stuck, powerless, as it ticked down towards zero. About a hand over his mouth, suffocating, stopping that heartbeat before it could. 

He shakes himself, then thinks better of it, groaning into the night air. Right. He’d been stupid enough to tackle a largescale bust without backup, and now he was paying the price. He needs to get up, go home, and dress his wounds before stuffing a bowl of sweet, delicious cereal in his face and collapsing into bed for a couple hours’ sleep before his traffic monitoring shift tomorrow morning. 

He gazes out at the night sky a little listlessly for a minute, then creakily rises from his crouch to standing. He’s about to shoot out a grapple line to the next building over when he hears someone clear their throat from behind him.

Dick turns, masking his surprise. _Stupid_ , he thinks, _not paying attention_. The person he sees isn’t who he’d have expected to be sneaking up on him on a Bludhaven rooftop in the deepest parts of the night. It’s not the Bat, looming and shadowing and assessing, in a suffocating way that he knows really means, deep down, that he cares. It’s not another ill-meaning criminal, either, trying to take revenge on Nightwing for ruining their current operations. Or at least, he doesn’t think it is.

“Slade,” he says, hip shifting to rest his hand on it, keeping his posture relaxed, easy, ready. His body aches in protest.

Deathstroke is regarding him with faint amusement, and he snorts quietly as he takes in Dick’s stance. 

“Kid,” he says by way of greeting, leaving Dick to make the next move here. And Dick does not need this right now, okay. He’s got an appointment with some cereal and his bed, and he’s going to be pissed if he can’t make it. 

“If you’re here to let me know you’re going to be killing someone in my city, I’m gonna go ahead and tell you now that I’m going to stop you. Surprise of all surprises, I’m sure,” Dick says, watching him carefully. His relationship with Slade Wilson is… complicated, to say the least. He’s pretty sure there’s some kind of mutual respect there, and Dick doesn’t go out of his way to keep up with what Deathstroke is up to if he can help it. In return, as long as Dick doesn’t get in his way, which really only happens in instances like these, where they run into each other on a case, Slade doesn’t try to kill him. It’s a working arrangement, sort of, outside of the fact that Dick doesn’t condone certain aspects of mercenary work, like murder.

“You’d be welcome to try,” Slade drawls, the eyes now roaming over Dick indicating exactly how capable of putting up a fight Slade thinks he is right now, before shifting his gaze from Dick to over his shoulder, down at the crime scene below. “My contract was for one of the fools you handily took down and offered up to the police, which complicates matters a bit,” he says, gesturing to where the BPD are still clearing up the warehouse below. 

Dick tilts his head, eyes narrowing. “Uh huh,” he says, wondering if he should maybe be reaching for his escrima sticks right now, “And that’s big money for you, is it, to go after low level criminals in Bludhaven?” He’d rather not have to take on Deathstroke in the state he’s in right now, especially since it’s not a fight he’s likely going to win, so he keeps his hands where they are, looking at Slade to try to figure out what the hell he’s doing here.

“Well,” Slade says, lips tilting up slightly at the sides, “He had ties to certain people my employer isn’t very keen on.” He looks at Dick, then. “And I may have had other motives for wanting to stop by this garbage pile of a city which prompted me to accept this contract.” 

“Other… motives,” Dick says slowly, because while he knows Slade has always had an interest in him, he hasn’t, to his knowledge, accepted a contract for the sole purpose of antagonizing Dick in his city before. He is not awake enough to deal with this right now. 

“It’s always entertaining, at least,” Slade says, tone not betraying anything else. Then he says, “You seem a little unbalanced to be taking on large white collar human trafficking syndicates, there, Kid.”

Dick wants to punch him in his eye, a little. He’d like to get to the point here.

“Are you going to go follow that police car and kill that man the second I leave this rooftop, or not?” he asks flatly. 

Slade regards him silently for a moment. “I’m not convinced you’re going to be able to leave this rooftop on your own power,” he says, and before Dick can protest _that_ he continues, “And my employer is not currently paying me enough to deal with that hassle, so maybe another night.” 

Dick is… not really sure what to do with that, if he’s honest. He doesn’t trust Slade. The back of his head has started throbbing in a way he doesn’t think means anything good for him. He’s still working out what he’s going to do when Slade says, “Not that I don’t enjoy watching your blood drip down all over this rooftop, Kid, but I’ve got other places to be tonight. We can have it out, or I can take you home and make sure I don’t have the annoyance of a Bat taking vengeance on me when you die from those wounds.” 

Dick snorts at that. “You’re gonna pass up on a golden opportunity to hand my ass to me, when you came all this way just to say hi?” he asks, shifting and crossing his arms across his chest and okay _owwww_ that was not his best idea.

“It wouldn’t exactly be worth the satisfaction, after you drop two minutes into the fight,” Slade says, and alright, Dick isn’t cocky enough to try to refute that. He sighs, and even that much hurts to do. He’s bone weary, and he can make himself fight if he has to, but he’s pretty much standing through sheer willpower alone. Sleep has been fleeting, these days.

Maybe some of what Dick’s been feeling and shoving down and out of sight shows on his face, maybe he just looks particularly pitiful right now, he doesn’t know, but whatever it is makes Slade decide to go, “Let’s go, Kid. I’m taking you home.” 

Dick knows if he pushes, that Slade will make good on his word and take him out right here. Making sure he’s okay after that would be beyond his obligation, and he’d likely either leave without a trace or worse, somehow let _Batman_ know where he is. He doesn’t want that. But he appreciates the choice he is sort of given, at least, and sighs again as he says, “Lead on.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Updating later than I expected, but here we are. End of the year exams and projects suck even more when they're virtual :( This chapter is waayyyyy longer than I anticipated, but it just kind of kept running without me. Dick gets a kitten. And some brotherly angst. I'm posting this in the middle of the night, and Google Docs is being very secretive when it comes to informing me of grammar and spelling errors, so I might have to come back to this when I'm a little more awake to fix some things, but hopefully it turned out okay! It's a little random, but whatever, who doesn't like kittens. I hope everyone is safe and happy and healthy in quarantine.

It’s snowing in Bludhaven tonight, soft flakes silently falling and mixing gray with the dirt and pollution on the pavement. It’s a first for this fall, finally coming in early November. Dick is currently curled up on his shitty, beat-down couch in the living room, working on a case. 

It’s been a couple of weeks since that incident in the Narrows with Slade. His injuries are aching dully while he datamines the website of a seedy front company that’s set up shop recently in the business district. He’s had to take off work while he nurses himself back to health, not wanting to put Amy in a position where she’d have to corroborate his cover story. He’d stated a family emergency, and has been using his newfound free time to plow away at cases that’ve piled up with the change in weather.

Dick groans and uses his good arm to rub at his tired, blurry eyes, checking the time. It’s getting close to ten, and he has yet to eat something substantial today. Not for lack of trying, but the amateur stir fry he’d attempted to cook up for lunch using the meager contents of his refrigerator had sat too heavily in his stomach, probably from the antibiotics he’d been pushing to keep his injuries from getting infected, and he’d had to wrap it up early or risk upchucking in the bathroom for a while. 

He doesn’t even have any _cereal_ , which just _sucks_ so hard. His stomach gurgles unhelpfully at him, so he decides it’s worth risking showing his face for a trip out. He can at least stock up on cereal, if nothing else. 

Problem is, he seems to have become one with his shitty, shitty couch. 

“O--kay,” he grinds out, “Easy does it.”

He might make a noise that’s not entirely human, but he gets himself up out of the corner of the couch he’d tucked himself into with minimal fuss, all things considered. His injuries might be burning ominously a little bit, but there’s no blood so he calls it a win. He heads over to sift through the mess in his closet for his peacoat to layer on top of the slouchy sweats and oversized sweater he’d thrown on this morning, shoves on some sneakers, closes out of and throws a worn blanket over his casework, and heads out. 

The convenience store clerk gives him a look when he enters, because he is looking a little more bruised and disheveled than your average customer, but this is Bludhaven, so the clerk just gives him a once-over and goes back to reading their magazine. Dick heads over to the section with cereal, hunting out his latest healthy brand of choice, because he is a responsible adult and won’t only eat chocolate cocoa puffs when he’s in bad health, obviously. Great Grains Crunchy Pecan is good as hell, and even has nuts in it, so he grabs four boxes and drops them in the basket. 

He hunts around for a few more odds and ends, and he’s starting to feel fatigued from his circuits around the store, so he cashes out and heads back out onto the sidewalk, shivering as the cold air works its way up his sleeves. His skin is buzzing unpleasantly, so he shakes himself lightly and heads home.

He’s making the trek back to his apartment when he sees slight movement out of the corner of his eye in a passing alleyway. He turns slowly, squinting into the darkness, and he’s weighing the odds of it being criminal activity when he hears a soft, barely discernible but still audible little mewling sound. Dick heads into the alley.

“ _Oh_ ,” he breathes out, looking down at a puddle of soiled rags in a little cardboard box. In the middle of this puddle is a tiny, fuzzy kitten, probably barely a couple weeks old. He crouches down, letting his grocery bags slide to the ground and his arms dangle over his knees.

The kitten shrinks back and hisses at him, raising a tiny paw to defend itself. Dick feels stupidly sad, for some reason. 

It'll die, if left here, the snow already starting to pile up around the edges of the cardboard box. Its muddied brown fur is matted badly, and it doesn’t seem to be able to stand, large, dark eyes narrowed up at Dick.

Dick Grayson does not live a life that is suitable for being responsible for something so small, and young, and vulnerable. He knows he should call animal control, or take it to a shelter, and just let things be, knowing he’d done all that he could. But he’s looking helplessly at this tiny, tiny little thing, and he can’t just leave things like that. This kitten is coming home with him tonight, he decides, even if it takes all night. He can’t help it. The fight and sheer stubborn determination in its eyes, the set of its stance. It reminds him of Damian a little, maybe.

“Hey there, little guy,” he says softly, slowly extending a hand out. The kitten clearly does not want Dick’s hand anywhere near it, and Dick feels bad as he inches it closer, but he needs to make sure the kitten trusts him enough not to attack him or try to run before he takes it out of the alley.

“What are we gonna call you, huh?” he asks, stopping his approach and just leaving his hand there. 

“You know, there was a pair of knife throwers who ran with Haly’s for a while back in my circus days, and they had a tiny little cat just like you. Well, okay, he was snow white and the biggest cuddle slut I’ve ever seen, but he didn’t start out that way. He also came from the streets. And they named him Cucumber, god only knows why. But you’re a little pricklier than he was right now, aren’t you? So I think I’m gonna call you Pickle, what do you think of that?”

Pickle is highly unimpressed with this, judging by the look on its face. That’s okay. Dick has, technically, all night after all. And he’s a world-class performer.

It ends up taking a little over two hours, a wide variety of viscous scratches, and a continuous stream of soothing words and gestures, but eventually Dick gets Pickle all bundled up in his peacoat, which he’d removed in an attempt to try and keep it warm. It’s after midnight, now, and he’s honestly kind of impressed that no one happened upon them in the alley for one reason or another. 

He decides to try his chances at the local 24 hour animal hospital, calling their emergency number to let them know the situation and plead to be seen. When he shows up a little while later, groceries dangling from his slightly shaking arms, the woman who’d opened the door almost closes it in his face. He knows he’s not exactly looking his best right now, but this isn’t about him.

“Please,” he begs helplessly, “I don’t know if it’ll survive on its own, and I don’t know how to help it.” 

She stops whatever she was about to say, looking him up and down, before her eyes finally land on his face. A beat, and then she sighs. “Alright then, honey, bring ‘em on in, but there better not be trouble following you.” 

Dick hurries inside, cooing at Pickle when they hiss and squirm in his arms at the bright lights and new voice. The doctor ends up running a full panel of tests for diseases. As well as she can since Pickle, who he finds out is female, is so small and fragile. She cleans her up, treats her wounds as best she can without sedating her, feeds her, and gives him the all-clear close to 2 AM. 

He’s given the run-down on care regimen, possible risks, milk, and food. It’s more than most people would have done, and he’s eternally grateful. They were lucky that Pickle probably hadn’t been as bad off as she had seemed, at first. He’s able to pay by tapping into his account with money from Bruce, which he hadn’t wanted but Bruce had insisted upon after he’d turned 18. Now Bruce will probably know what he’s been up to, but it’s a necessary evil. He’s not going to take his Daddy issues out on Pickle. 

The doctor had raised a very skeptical eyebrow when he was able to pay in full, plus extra, for all the trouble, but she just shook her head and let it go. He’ll send her some flowers, too, when he gets the chance. 

They had tried to get Pickle situated in a blanket padded carrier, but Dick had seen how terrified she was of being enclosed, and he hadn’t had the heart to make her. He's now once again carrying her in his arms, wrapped in his coat. 

Dick has also now broken out in full-body shivering. He’s doing his best not to jostle Pickle, who’s just curled up tighter into his chest. He’s shivering, but he’s not cold, and he’s hyper-aware of the fabric of his sweater rubbing on his skin, his injuries having numbed out to a dull throb. Which probably means the infection he’d been trying to stave off is setting in with a fever. And he’s now found himself as the, however temporary, guardian of a small defenseless kitten he has to protect. 

He doesn’t let himself panic, focusing on getting home and out of the snow as quickly as possible to try to deal with this situation. He’ll call for help if he absolutely needs to, because he’s not going to put Pickle at risk if this takes a downhill trajectory. But for now, he’s dealt with worse, and isn’t even sure who he’d call, so he just keeps walking. 

He makes it to his apartment, getting up to his floor and making the trudge up to his door. He’s fumbling with one hand to get his keys out of his coat pocket when the door swings open before he gets the chance.

He immediately adjusts Pickle and whips out his keys, gripping the sharpest one, as he registers why in the hell someone is in his apartment.

“Where the _fuck_ have you been?” 

Dick blinks. And then he blinks again, because why the _hell_ is _Jason Todd_ in his apartment? 

So the first thing he can think to say is, “Did you break into my apartment?”

Jason takes him in, seemingly because he’s as dumbfounded by Dick as Dick is by this whole _situation_ , but then he says, “I didn’t even have to, because the _door was unlocked_ , Dickface!”

Dick looks from the door to the keys he is currently holding threateningly at Jason’s face. “Huh,” he says. “I guess I forgot to lock it.” His brain is a little slow right now, but he hadn’t realized how out of it he’d been before he’d even left his apartment. 

Jason is looking at him with the sort of murderous disbelief that Dick associates with people getting their faces stomped in, but he’s in his apartment and he’s actually _talking_ to Dick, so he’s not going to screw this up by provoking him further. 

“Uh, well, did you wanna come in? Or I guess stay in, since you’re already... I can whip up some, um,” he glances down at the now soggy groceries still hanging off his good arm, “cereal, probably? And maybe some tea.” 

Pickle has woken up from sleep at the sound of the commotion, and she’s now hissing at Jason with increasing intensity. “But first I gotta take care of this little one, okay?” he says, stepping around Jason to enter his apartment. “Shhh, it’s okay, I know he seems scary but he’s actually a giant softie, and he’s family, Pickle, so you’re gonna have to get used to him.”

“What the fuck?” Jason says, still at the door as Dick heads further into his apartment, looking for blankets. 

He hears the door shut while he rifles through his closet for the blankets, and he’s pulling them out when he hears footsteps approaching his bedroom. Then Jason says, “I can put those groceries away while you do… whatever.” He still sounds angry, but this is the most civil conversation they’ve had in over a year, and surprisingly, Dick doesn’t think he’s even the thing Jason is exactly angry at. 

So he looks over his shoulder, ignoring the pain that shoots down his arm, and smiles softly. “Sure, Jay, I’d really appreciate that.”

Jason huffs, then pads over to take the bags that are now sprawled over Dick’s bedroom floor, giving Pickle a wide berth as he does so, amusingly. He’s not wearing his helmet, but he does have his body armor on, and Dick wants to know why he's here in the first place. He’s not going to push it, though, because it’s obvious Jason has something he wants to talk to him about, and he doesn’t want his own temper and worn down state to aggravate an argument. Not that he thinks he could be angry with Jason right now, anyway. He doesn’t exactly have any high ground.

Once he has what he needs, Dick heads back out into the living room, shutting the doors to his bedroom and bathroom as he goes. He makes a temporary nest for Pickle, who is sleeping again. His vision blurs out a couple of times when he pulls on his stitches, but he hides it. He goes to help Jason with the groceries, but as he approaches Jason grunts out, “Sit.”

So he sits, sitting by Pickle where he’d gotten her settled on the table. He picks at the sleeves of his sweater, then notices his phone where he’d apparently left it on the table. He reaches over for it, and sees several missed notifications from the past few hours, all from an unknown number. Probably a burner Jason had used. Tendrils of dread creep into his stomach.

“Jason…,” he starts, “You tried to contact me a few times. Is everything okay? Is anyone hurt?” 

Jason turns around at that, crossing his arms. “Everyone’s fine,” he says, glaring at Dick. “Dick. What the fuck happened to you?” 

That is a… loaded question. He shifts in his seat. “The scratches are from Pickle, because she doesn’t really like people right now. The rest is from a bust I did a couple weeks ago, for a case I’ve been working on.”

Jason frowns, and his eyes move from Dick’s to the rest of his face, where he knows he’s still sporting bruises, down his neck to fixate on his shoulder, where Dick is now realizing scores of bandages and mottled bruising are visible where his sweater has slipped down to the side. “Yeah, and I’m gonna eventually force you to stay down so I can check those injuries and decide whether we need to call Alfred or not, you moron. They’re probably infected.” Jason takes a breath. “What the fuck happened to you when that mess with the Crime Syndicate went down half a year ago?”

Dick withholds a flinch. “Jason, about what happened then…” He looks him straight in the eyes. “I’m sorry. It never should’ve happened like that. I don’t expect you to be able to forgive me for what I put you all through, but I need you to know that I’m sorry. It was a charged situation, and I made the wrong call--”

“ _Christ_ , stop, shut up, before I have to punch something, jesus _fuck_ , Bruce really did a number on that guilt complex, that is not what I meant. I _saw the cowl footage_ , Dick!” 

Dick looks at him. 

“I... you… what?”

Jason practically growls at him. “I came here today, because I needed to see if you were actually stupid enough to let us blame you for six months for faking your death, even though it only happened because you _actually fucking died_ and Bruce took advantage of that to force you onto a mission!”

“Oh,” Dick says, eloquently. Pickle has started getting restless from all the shouting. He starts stroking her gently as he replies. “Jason, it really wasn’t that cut and dry. Yes, I died, but it didn’t end up lasting that long, and at the end of the day I made the decision to hurt you all. Bruce is just… Bruce and I are just like that,” he finishes, looking at a spot on the table. His head is pounding. He thinks he might still be shivering. He needs to stay alert for this conversation.

“If it was anyone else, you wouldn’t stand for it,” Jason says, and Dick looks over to see his hands have curled into fists at his sides. “You know you wouldn’t. You'd just been kidnapped, beaten, exposed, strapped to a bomb and fucking _murdered_ , and as soon as you woke up Bruce threw you around and guilted you into something you didn’t want when your headspace was down the toilet. You didn’t deserve that.” His eyes trail over to Dick’s injuries again. “And we shouldn’t have left you alone all this time, either.” 

A minute ticks by while Dick considers how to respond to this. Jason is saying things that he hears and knows are probably true, on some level. But he's not really ready to deal with that just yet. It's been a long day. A long year. 

“I’m okay, Jay,” he says quietly. “Really.”

Jason sighs, and starts walking over to where Dick is sitting at the table. “No, you aren’t. But whatever, I’m not gonna keep harping on you when you’re all sad and pathetic looking. Where are your med supplies?”

Jason is looking like he’ll probably start searching through his apartment to find them, and Dick’s apartment is kind of a physical manifestation of his lack of self care right now, and Jason has already seen too much of it, so Dick starts to get up to show him. He gets about halfway before his vision swims, and the next thing he knows his head is bumping into a large chest, and there’s an arm like an iron bar around his waist. 

“C’mon, Dickface, we’re moving your gigantic ass to the couch,” Jason says, tight and worried in his ear. 

“Jay,” he slurs out, trying to get his bearings when the floor seems to be rolling underneath him. “Pickle.”

“Oh my fucking god, your stupid cat is fine, she’s sleeping right where you left her. What the fuck is up with that, anyway? How am I supposed to yell at you for being an idiot when you show up looking like death warmed over with a fucking _kitten_ you apparently saved from starvation at two o’clock in the morning, like some kind of C-rate Disney princess?” Jason carefully deposits him on the couch, and Dick can hear him rummaging around looking for his med kit, presumably. 

He comes back what was probably a few minutes later, but felt like could’ve been hours. Yup, that’s definitely the fever kicking in. Or maybe the remnants of his concussion. Shit, he hopes they don’t have to call Alfred. 

“And why _Pickle_ , anyway, are your brains so scrambled that you couldn’t think of a name other than the only food you have left in your fucking fridge?” Dick knows Jason is just trying to keep him awake by asking him inane questions. He lets his face split into a shit-eating grin.

“Wouldn’t _you_ like to know?” he pants, slitting his eyes open. He doesn’t remember closing them. 

Jason rolls his eyes at him, but his mouth is set in a worried frown. “Idiot. Just stay awake. How bad did they get you?”

He must have closed his eyes again, because they flutter open when he feels a hand on his forehead. “Shit, you’ve got a fever, I _knew_ these were infected.” He hears Jason start rifling through the med kit. 

“Got shot a little bit. Stabbed a little bit, too, but not too deep. Concussion, I think,” Dick breathes out, trying to pay attention to what Jason is saying. 

Jason gets his sweater off of him, and Dick shivers violently, his sweaty torso now exposed to open air. “How did you even treat these? I know you’re bendy, but they’re everywhere, and would’ve bled all over.” 

Dick tries to shrug, then hisses when pain cuts through his shoulder. “I’ve dealt with worse, and I had some help.”

He feels Jason wipe his arm down with disinfecting wipes, and then the sharp pinch of an IV being inserted. Probably Dick’s emergency antibiotics. “Help, huh? Who did you even call in the middle of punishing yourself for shit that’s not your fault?”

Dick’s breath catches on a whine when Jason starts to gently drag a wet cloth over his more delicate unbandaged injuries. “Why’d you even look at that cowl footage anyway? Didn’t know Bruce kept it.”

“Was working on a case,” Jason grunts, starting to unwrap some of Dick’s bandages. He hears him suck in a breath. “I was looking into an arms dealer related to sophisticated bomb use, and figured out he was connected to a bomb and the Crime Syndicate from around the time you faked your death. Figured Bruce’s anal-retentive ass would have some insightful information.”

“Interesting. You want some help with that case, once I’m on the mend?” Dick asks, gritting his teeth and trying to stay still while Jason finishes cleaning out where he'd been shot.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Jason says helpfully, right before applying disinfectant to the stitches closing one of his knife wounds.

Dick hisses through his teeth. “It was Slade, actually,” he says. He figures telling him now will be easier than having Jason rooting around through his case files later. 

He can feel Jason’s stare. “Do you actually possess zero self preservation? Is that it?” 

“Apparently not, or so I’ve been told once or twice,” Dick replies. A beat, and then, “It was fine, Jay, he wasn’t going to hurt me. I think he came by to check if I was still alive, actually.”

“Right. Because Deathstroke is so well known for his bed-side manner,” Jason responds flatly. 

The pain from disturbing his injuries had helped keep him lucid before, but Dick can feel himself slipping the longer they’re talking. Trust an infection to make all the things he’s done to his body is the past weeks catch up with him. He lets himself smile pointedly up at Jason. “Not as good as yours,” he slurs, and then he gathers himself to ask, “I’m sorry, I hate to ask, but can you watch Pickle while I’m out of commission here? You can take the bed, stay the night, just take her with you. I’ll be good by morning.”

Jason snorts at that. “Yes, I’ll watch your cat, Grayson. And I was gonna stay anyway, to make sure you don’t die from your own stupidity. Think you can handle transport to your room? This sorry excuse for a piece of furniture does not a healthy person make. Also there’s blood on it,” Jason says, checking his temperature again.

“My couch is shitty, but dependable. Like a fungus,” he murmurs, patting it with a weak hand. “I can handle the trip, but the couch is really fine, Jay. I sleep here half the time anyway.”

“Of course you do,” Jason says. And then, “This is gonna suck.”

Jason carefully slides an arm around Dick to help him up, slinging Dick’s good arm over his shoulder. They painstakingly make their way to Dick’s room, bringing along the IV. Dick clings onto Jason, grimacing and breathing hard while trying to keep weight off his injuries, until he collapses onto his sheets. Jason gets his shoes and sweats off, and pulls up the covers from underneath him. 

Dick waits while Jason goes and grabs his thermometer, and complies when he sticks it in his mouth. “A hundred and two,” Jason says, plucking it out. “It gets any higher, we’re calling Alfred, maybe going to the hospital.”

“Seems reasonable,” Dick agrees, half present at this point. 

“Go the fuck to sleep, Dickface. I’ll be in the other room,” Jason says, leaving with the door open.

Dick has been fighting a losing battle with unconsciousness probably since he got up that morning. He drifts off to the sounds of Jason moving around his apartment, and he feels a little more whole than he has in a long time.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys, sorry for kind of dipping out there for a while. This chapter was kind of hard for me to write, and I was stuck on it for a while after exams. But here she is, in all her glory. ***spoilers*** but Lil Timmy Tim makes an appearance for the first time, and there is angst. But things seem to be going okay for Dick, all things considered. It's always nice to have people who care about you around, so you aren't left alone to die of scurvy and infection before anyone notices. Hope everyone is doing well! Quarantine sucks but I'm proud of you!

When Dick slowly peels his eyes open, they grit like sandpaper. After a few attempts at blinking them open all the way, he blearily peers out around his bedroom. He experiences a moment of panic when he’s met with darkness. His thoughts briefly spiral out towards a years’ host of memories of waking up bound or injured and alone in the darkest of places, which cuts through the haze of his lingering fever, but as his eyes adjust to the faint moonlight streaming in through the crack in his curtains, he’s able to reassess and reaffirm where he is, and how he got here. Right. Kittens and little brothers breaking into his apartment and the ensuing drama when his more recent mistakes sent him falling towards the floor. 

He figures it’s probably still early, given the darkness, and he doesn’t think this is the first time he’s woken up, either. He has vague impressions of awareness of a thermometer being jammed in his dry, crusty mouth, and a general undercurrent stream of cursing. Let it never be said that Jason couldn’t deliver an efficient bedside manner. He pushes through his hazy brain to try to focus on what woke him up this time, and picks up on a faint hissing coming from somewhere else in his apartment. Maybe the cat, although there’s a niggling in the back of his mind that it’s familiar, somehow. 

When he tries to quietly sit up, the room swims and he almost goes down again. He sucks in a stabilizing breath, and slowly slides his legs out of bed, a twang shooting down his arm and chest. The IV isn’t exactly stealthy, but Dick’s made this work under less ideal circumstances before. Avoiding the spots where he knows the floorboards creak and the general debris on his bedroom floor, he creeps towards the door to peer out into his now dark apartment. 

Jason should still be around somewhere, ideally on the couch, but he can’t make out the living room very well from where he’s standing, leaning heavily on the wall next to the doorframe. But with his newfound lucidity and vantagepoint, he _can_ make out the hissing better, enough to know it’s coming from intensive whispering. Given that Jason would definitely have noticed anyone entering his apartment, like Dick would’ve if he hadn’t been so out of it, the general lack of gunfire or signs of a fight in addition to the whispering mean it’s most likely the non-threatening variety of visit. 

He pinches his nose, eyes going heavenward. He hasn’t socialized this much outside of work and Nightwing in a long time, and he really hopes that whoever else has decided to stop by tonight isn’t going to require a careful, level head to keep things civil. He _really_ hopes it’s not Bruce, but that probably isn’t likely given that he’d woken up on his own, and not to a demanding silhouette and even more demanding questions. He thinks it’s kind of a miracle that that hasn’t happened sooner, honestly.

Regardless, he hasn’t been woken up, which has to mean something, and although it’s probably a long shot that he won’t be heard if he tries to get closer, he doesn’t really have anything to lose by trying. Slowly, he eases his door open just right to slip through with the IV pole and quietly inches towards the source of the noise, which gets louder closer to the living room. 

“-- _to talk to him about something, and he’s gonna notice anyway. What, did you punch him too hard and now you’re trying to hide the evidence? I don’t care about your pissing contest, I just need_ \--”

“ _That’s not the point_ , Jimberly, _he is fucking_ sleeping _the rest of this night through or so help me the next person who goes in there is getting a hole through their middle. There’s shit you don’t know, Tim, okay_ \--”

“ _I didn’t come here to start a fight, Hood, I just need to talk to him. If you could just tell me_ why--”

“ _It’s not my business, alright, I’m sure Dickface will be happy to tell you himself after he’s had his beauty sleep. He’s not in a good way_ \--”

Jason cuts off abruptly, and Dick freezes where he’d been adjusting his uncomfortable position against the wall. 

There’s a heavy sigh from across the room. “And it seems like it’s not gonna matter anyway. The fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Dick grimaces. Yeah, not his best night. With his own sigh, he starts to make his way out from the little alcove between walls where he’d been listening out into the living room proper, dragging his IV pole along with him. He stops when he gets to the couch, and puts his good hand up against the glare being directed his way. 

“In my defense, I was just doing what any responsible adult would do in response to intruders in their apartment. And I’m a father now, what kind of man would I be if I didn’t make sure everything was safe before approaching?” he says, glancing at where Jason had apparently settled Pickle in with him where he’d obviously been sleeping on the couch. Because that’s not ridiculously adorable, or anything. His mouth twitches. But Jason is standing now, over by the window with the other elephant in the room he needs to address. He looks up, and gives a small smile. “Hi, Tim.”

He can’t see everything of Tim’s expression with the cowl on, but he’s had years of practice at reading the bottom half of faces, and the way Tim’s lips are increasingly thinning as he takes in Dick is not an indication of happiness. 

“Hey, Dick,” he says softly, lifting his gaze to Dick’s face. “How’re you doing?”

Dick shifts his weight to his hip, scratching the back of his neck lightly. “I’m doing okay,” he says, lips quirking up further even as he internally cringes at the sight he must make. His torso twinges painfully at the motion, and he puts his arm down. His breathing might not be the most even, because he doesn’t think his fever is really down yet, but that’s his own business. 

The silence is stretching on a little too long, and he thinks Jason’s hands are twitching with the urge to do something, maybe bodily force Dick back into bed, he’s not sure. It’s hard to tell sometimes, with Jason. 

“Soooo, since it seems like my apartment is a pretty popular hangout spot tonight, can I offer you some… uh… cereal and tea? Maybe hot chocolate? I might have some… pickles and peanut butter.” He really needs to restock his kitchen. It should not be this awkward, but he’s floundering a bit. Alfred would be ashamed.

Jason makes an inhuman noise akin to a growl, shoving his hands through his hair. “Right, because you’re the shining beacon of a host, stuck to an IV and standing in your underpants. Just… sit down, before a strong breeze bowls you over, and the Replacement can tell you why he’s here before I have to strangle someone, preferably myself,” he says, gesturing to the living room at large. 

A crooked little grin spreads on Dick’s face. “I-- yeah, that’s not a bad idea, thanks, Jay.” 

He shuffles over to the couch, stealing one of the blankets Jason had been using and curling up into the corner on the armrest. Jason leans against the wall by the window, arms crossed, and Tim comes over to perch on the armchair nearest to Dick.

Tim seems to be collecting his thoughts to figure out how to begin, so Dick waits patiently to give him the space to sort it out. He’s not as upfront as Jason can be about confrontation, which presents its own kind of challenge, and Dick has learned not to push before Tim is ready. He looks tired, a droop in his shoulders and a stiffness about him that tugs at Dick’s heart. It’s been too long since he’s had a real conversation with either of them.

He feels a light tickling sensation on his forearm and looks down to see that Pickle has made her way over to sit with him. A soft smile spreads across his face, and he tentatively starts stroking her gently while he waits. His heart feels a little lighter, watching her sweet little eyes drift closed and the way her soft, mottled fur parts underneath his fingertips. He feels some of the tension drain from his body.

“She’s adorable.”

Dick looks up to see that Tim is watching him with a bemused look on his face, his lips half quirking. Jason is also looking over, looking indignant, but there’s a softness dulling the edges of it. His smile widens.

“Yeah, isn’t she? I’d like to see anyone _try_ and resist that face. The power she has,” he says, giving her neck a gentle scratch and getting a rumbling purr in response. He coos at her.

That garners a snort, and Tim shakes his head a little. He scratches the back of his neck, looking less tense but still mildly uncomfortable. “Look, I’m sorry to be just barging in on you like this,” he starts, shifting. “I know we haven’t exactly, uh, talked in a while. But I was in New York looking for leads on a case for an international organized crime kingpin, and apparently he has ties to Bludhaven. He’s connected to a case you’ve been working on through some associates of Archibald Flinn, so I was planning on heading out here eventually to check up on some things and ask you about that but, um, things kind of got rushed when I ran into Huntress while I was still in the city,” Tim says, pausing to take a breath.

Now that is… interesting information. He’s pretty sure he can help Tim out, after his visit from a particular two-faced mercenary. He'd been given some vital information that night on the rooftop, purposefully or not, he didn’t care to parse out which at the moment, though his money was on it having been intentional. He’d been doing some digging in his newfound spare time for that case since then, and he thinks he might have an ID for the man Tim’s looking for. And he’s glad Tim is here. But, there’s the matter of why Tim’s here right now, so, “You saw Helena? We didn’t exactly, uh, part on the _best_ of terms last time I saw her,” he says, frowning a little. 

Tim tips his head in acknowledgement. “Yeah, she wasn’t, um, super keen on it, but you did come up. We got to talking about things, and I think she just wanted to know how you’d been, and I didn’t respond the most… favorably. Which surprised her, so we kept talking, got to more recent circumstances, and, well,” Tim pauses, before looking headlong at Dick. “Dick, did you-- before Spyral, I mean, did you… die?”

There is an overarching irony happening here, Dick thinks, which would almost be comical if it really, really wasn’t. He thinks maybe Slade Wilson has something to do with this. Or Batman. But he’s not going to upset Tim by bringing this up, with what would probably be a fair bout of hysterical laughter and a painful recounting of how he faked his death. He definitely deserves this, at any rate. 

He grimaces, with a failed attempt at a painful, tentative smile. “I mean, technically no, but if you mean what you’re probably referring to here, um… yes? A little? Technically. But only for a few minutes,” he says, trying to look-- you know, he’s not even sure what he’s going for here, because he doesn’t really know, himself, how he’s feeling about being asked that essentially twice in the same night. His head pounds dully. 

Tim had paled the longer he talked. He thinks he can hear Jason grinding his teeth even from where he’s sunk lower on the couch. He hadn’t noticed he’d been doing that. He tries to sit up. 

“Right. Okay. That’s, um, yeah,” Tim starts, his voice pitched higher and sounding a little more panicky than Dick thinks is warranted here. “And how did that happen, exactly?”

Before Dick can figure out how to reply to that, ostensibly better than how he’d answered that last question, Jason cuts in, “You can calm down, Replacement, there’s still only one green eyed zombie between us, it wasn’t like that.” 

And Dick feels really stupid because how did he not realize that of course that’s the logical thought trajectory, given their history. Evidently, Helena hadn’t really explained whatever she’d told Tim, though to be fair he doesn’t think he can remember exactly what he’d told her in the first place, either. He might not’ve been completely lucid when he apparently told her about that particular story, and it’s especially hard to recount what happened right now. Jason is looking like he’s making a physical effort to keep things civil, and he’s not sure how much closer he and Tim have gotten in the months he’s been absent but he’s hoping it’ll hold out now. It hurts, that he doesn’t know. 

He lurches forward a bit. “Whatever you’re thinking Tim, Jason’s right, it wasn’t like that.” He feels heavy gazes on his face. “I don’t know how much you know about what happened back then, but. The gist of it is that I got kidnapped and exposed as Nightwing, which you know, but then I was sort of... They attached me to a bomb. I briefly had my heart stopped to keep it from going off, was then revived, and then extracted. I wasn’t gone for very long.” 

His heartbeat is thumping in his ribcage. There’s a faint ringing in his ears. He doesn’t let this show on his face. He hasn’t given away much, but Tim can probably read between the lines. He looks stricken. 

“But then-- why did you--” He looks between Dick and Jason. Jason’s expression is mildly thunderous, in a way that’s familiar. “Dick, what happened between you and Bruce after that?” 

He knows Tim’s not asking him lightly. He’s not sure he’s ready to admit to himself just what exactly happened after that. “B had a mission,” he says slowly, his gaze now locked on where his fingers are still stroking soft fur. “I wasn’t in the best shape after all that, and I woke up in the cave. Bruce wasn’t exactly happy with what went down, so we kind of had it out. He needed me to go undercover, and I… agreed.” 

At that, Jason let out something between a growl and a hysterical laugh. “Like you had a _choice_.”

“‘Kind of had it out’” Tim echoed, and it sounded sour in his mouth. “God, Dick… you-- you know that’s not okay, right? Not any of it.” 

Tim sounds imploring. Dick knows which part he’s referring to. It’s something he’s gotten very good at not thinking about. He knows he hadn’t wanted to “have it out” with Bruce right after waking up that day. He knows he hadn’t wanted to let his family think he was dead. But he also knows that that wasn’t the first, or worst, time he’s ever had his boundaries pushed, and all things considered, he likes to think that lives were saved because of what happened. At the end of the day, he’ll never know what decision he would’ve made if he’d been allowed to make it on his own. It’s not going to change the outcome now, regardless of how he feels about it. Regardless of how he felt about it then. It isn’t. And he is very, very tired. 

“Maybe you’re right, Tim,” he says, shifting against the hard arm of the couch where it’s digging uncomfortably into his burning side. “Just-- let’s talk about this another time, when we don’t run the risk of waking my neighbors up, okay? Regardless of all that,” and here he meets Tim’s eyes where they’re still covered by his cowl, “I know you must have mixed feelings about me right now, but I’m-- I’m really glad you’re here. And… I’d like it if you stayed, at least for a little while.” He moves his gaze to Jason. “Both of you.” 

Tim lets out a pained noise, and then his vision is being engulfed by bright red and black before he’s being gently and awkwardly hugged around the neck. He reaches with his good arm to cling back, mindful that Tim doesn’t usually like being touched like this. 

“I’m so sorry, Dick,” is his response, from where Dick can feel Tim’s warm breath blowing through his hair. He hasn’t been touched this long by hands that don’t want to hurt him in a long time. He grips back tighter, ignoring the twinge it sends through his body.

“Hey, it’s okay, Timmy. Nothing to be sorry about.” 

He feels Tim shake his head, and then he pulls away. Dick already misses the warmth. 

“Oh, no, there’s plenty to be sorry about, but whatever, can you go the fuck back to sleep now? And I swear to god if you ripped some of those stitches walking over here, there’s gonna be hell to pay,” Jason says, starting to make his way over from where he’d been waiting patiently on the wall. He looks concerned, underneath the irritation. 

He quirks his lips. “Sorry, Jay.” He gets a pissed off noise in response. 

Dick starts to make his way up and off the couch, upsetting Pickle where she’d been sleeping against him. “Sorry,” he whispers soothingly.

He’s doing okay until he accidentally puts too much weight on his bad arm and his vision whites out. The world tilts. There’s a high pitched whining in his ears and it takes him a second to realize it’s coming from him. His accelerated descent towards the ground was apparently stopped by Jason, who he doesn’t remember being this close but is currently holding most of his weight with an awkward knee underneath his thighs and an arm across his back. “Easy,” he hears breathed out near his ear, gentle, and Dick is shifted in his hold once Jason realizes he’s fully conscious. He can feel other hands on his back and good shoulder, Tim also helping keep him upright. 

“What _happened_ ,” he hears Tim grit out.

“He was alone,” is Jason’s dry reply, before Dick can say anything. Which, yeah, he supposes that’s fair. 

“Okay, okay, I’m okay, sorry,” Dick gets out in a rush, trying to catch his breath and see past the throbbing in his head. It’s too hot and too warm all at once, and he shivers. 

“If you apologize for _one_ more goddamn thing--”

“Alright, Jason, he gets it, can we _move_ him please?”

Dick is grateful for the intervention, right up until his whole world tilts again and he’s being lifted upwards, good arm adjusted to be around Jason’s neck and legs dangling over the side of his arm. He presses his forehead into Jason’s neck to try to get everything to stop spinning, even as he grinds out, “ _Really_?”

Jason's moving reply is, “Shut up, Dick Dick, it’s your own fault for making me play nursemaid.” 

Tim must be dragging the IV pole along with them as they move to Dick’s bedroom. He’d feel a little ashamed, if he wasn’t too busy trying to not to feel like he has to puke. 

When they get to his room, he’s carefully placed and adjusted on the bed. Mercifully, everything seems to stabilize around him once he’s no longer moving. He feels Jason prodding along his torso to check his handiwork, and hears Tim moving around the room, maybe checking the IV. Right now he can’t be bothered to care. He’s actually kind of relaxed, enough that before he can drag his eyes open from where he hadn’t noticed they’d slipped closed, or say anything else, he’s drifted off to sleep.


End file.
